


Christmas Memories

by AconitumNapellus



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Cold, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pneumonia, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 06:00:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28300101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AconitumNapellus/pseuds/AconitumNapellus
Summary: Trapped in a freezing cell, Illya is ill, and Napoleon recounts his first Christmas to try to pass the time. Later, Illya tells Napoleon about his first Christmas.
Relationships: Illya Kuryakin & Napoleon Solo
Comments: 27
Kudos: 63





	Christmas Memories

How could a floor be so cold? But then, everything else was cold. The air was so cold it almost felt solid, but perhaps that was because it took so much effort to make muscles move, not because of any thickness in the air. Napoleon stumbled across the little room again to look out through the unglazed window. When he touched his hands to the bars they felt cold enough to burn. There was nothing out there. He could see nothing but snow shining ghostly pale in the meagre light, the dark lines of trees, and the heavy black sky above.

The light meant that there must be a light on, somewhere. There was no light in the cell, but there must be light somewhere to shine out onto the snow. That didn’t mean the place had anyone left in it, though. Napoleon was starting to feel certain that the men had just upped and left. They had been giving their captives food and water, and occasionally slopping out the bucket, but they had been left completely alone for three days.

He moved back across the cell to the wooden door that was almost completely lost in the darkness. Feebly he lifted his hand and banged on it.

‘Listen,’ he called out, or tried to call. His voice was hoarse. His throat was dry, and he was too tired.

He stood there, leaning on the door for a minute. The wood almost felt warm compared to everything else. Then he turned away and went back across the little room to Illya.

Illya was stretched out on the floor, and first Napoleon fumbled a hand to his forehead to feel his temperature. He was the only hot thing in the room, but he knew it was important to keep him from the cold, damp floor. He had scraped together as much of the meagre straw as he could to make something of a bed for Illya, but it didn’t insulate him much from the stone flags beneath.

‘Hey,’ he said quietly.

Illya’s cough was painful to hear. It wracked through his chest and left him wheezing, his breath rattling in his throat.

‘You really are milking it, aren’t you?’ Napoleon asked, but his voice was tender.

He could feel Illya’s breath against his skin. It was hot as the air from an oven.

‘Now, come on,’ Napoleon said.

He sat cross-legged on the floor and eased Illya’s head up and sat him up a little, arranging him so that he was leaning back against Napoleon’s chest. He patted his fingers in a little tattoo across Illya’s chest, trying to loosen the phlegm. He could feel the limpness of what had been a crisp, clean shirt under his hands. He rocked a little and touched his lips to Illya’s hair.

‘How are you feeling?’ Napoleon asked gently.

‘Rotten,’ Illya murmured.

His voice was cracked too. They had been left alone in this freezing place for three days, and Illya had already been coming down with a cold when they were captured. By now it had progressed to a full blown chest infection, as far as Napoleon could tell.

‘Can you hold yourself up for a bit?’ Napoleon asked. ‘Illya?’

He could feel the wheezing of Illya’s breath in his lungs against the palm of his hand, but he grunted an answer.

‘All right,’ Napoleon said. ‘All right, just hold yourself up a moment.’

He eased himself out from under his partner and went over to the window to scrape snow from the windowsill into his palm. When he looked back into the room he could only just see Illya’s form, his jacket a little darker than the wall behind, his blond hair just catching a little light.

‘All right, Illya,’ he said, coming back across the room, finding his partner was leaning his shoulder and head against the wall. He held the snow in his hand, feeling the burning of the melting crystals of ice. He let some of it melt and then trickled it into Illya’s mouth, some more melt, and trickled it again, until all of the snow was gone.

‘Better?’ he asked, settling himself back on the floor, resting Illya back against him, starting up that light tattoo on his chest again.

‘Thanks,’ Illya said.

‘Not the best day, huh?’ Napoleon asked, arms around Illya’s chest, Illya’s head resting back against his shoulder. ‘Don’t I wish I could conjure a roast dinner out of thin air?’

‘Not hungry,’ Illya said.

That was one of the most worrying things Napoleon had heard so far. They hadn’t been given food in three days, and all their water had been gleaned from melted snow.

‘Well, you could stand to lose a little weight,’ he quipped lightly. ‘Last time I had to haul you out of somewhere like this I could hardly carry you.

‘Huh,’ Illya replied, and Napoleon couldn’t tell if it were a laugh or just a noise.

‘All right,’ Napoleon said. ‘Come on. Let’s talk, huh? Why don’t you tell me something about your childhood?’

Illya grunted. He took in a breath, and something caught, and he began to cough. Napoleon pressed his hands against Illya’s chest, willing his touch to remove some of the pain, even though he knew he couldn’t do anything.

‘Okay,’ Napoleon said as the coughing subsided. ‘I’ll tell you something about mine. First Christmas I remember. Actually, it might have been a few of my Christmases. You know how your memories all blend together, when it’s from that long ago?’

Illya grunted again, and Napoleon took that as a sign that he was listening, at least.

‘Okay,’ he said again, rubbing his hand on Illya’s chest. ‘First Christmas. I suppose what I remember most is the tree. Dad hauled it in from – Oh, I don’t know. I always thought he’d gone out with a hatchet and chopped that thing down. I imagined him going out through the woods, picking his tree. I don’t know if he did. He probably went down to a lot where they were selling them, and picked one out. But he dragged this thing in, wet with snow, dead leaves and twigs all in the branches, and I thought he’d gone out like a great white hunter, and tracked this one down.

‘So, we set it up in the corner, right next to the radio. We had one of those beautiful old radios. You know? Polished veneer, curves. It was taller than I was. I guess I was knee high to a grasshopper, and when I stood next to the tree it seemed to go up forever. We had pretty high ceilings in that house, and this thing touched the ceiling. Dad had to get a stepladder to get to the top to fix on the star.’

‘Star,’ Illya murmured. ‘No angel?’

Napoleon laughed. He was glad Illya was following him, at least.

‘No angel,’ he said. ‘A star. I think mom might have made it, maybe before I was born. That thing looked handmade. I don’t know why. She could have bought a beautiful one. But that one was beautiful enough. So he fixed that first, and then we all helped with tinsel, baubles, little ornaments. Not even sure they were all Christmas things. Maybe they were things mom and dad had got on their travels. They travelled a lot before I was born. After I was born, too,’ he said rather wistfully, remembering weeks, months, sometimes, of being left with Aunt Amy while mom and dad were gone again. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said quickly. ‘It was a loving house. Just, dad travelled a lot for work, and often mom would go with him, and I guess they thought it was best they didn’t drag me all around the world.’

‘Hmm,’ Illya grunted in a non-committal way. ‘Suppose you’ve seen enough of the world now.’

Napoleon chuckled. ‘Yeah, I guess I made up for it,’ he sighed.

Sometimes it seemed he saw more hotel rooms than his own bed. Here they were now, in some old fortress in Eastern Europe. The view was beautiful from the window of the cell; rolling hills covered with ancient forest, all the trees covered with snow along their bare branches. But he would have rather been at home right now, or taking Illya to the hospital.

‘Well,’ he said, because he didn’t want to think about all the times his parents went away, or about how Illya would probably die in this cell. ‘That tree. So big that when I looked up at the star I got a crick in my neck. Mom insisted on candles. We had these little candle holders that clipped onto the branches. Dad wanted electric lights, mom said no way, they’d burn down the house. They’d get left on and short out, and set fire to the tree. So she said we’d have candles, and then we’d always be there when they were lit and we’d blow them out when we left the room.’

‘Huh,’ Illya grunted. ‘Seems sensible. Dry tinder covered with dripping wax and naked flames…’

‘Cynical Russian,’ Napoleon chided him. ‘It was beautiful, anyway. I remember later feeling jealous because my friends had all these coloured lights and we just had those plain old fashioned candles. But you know what? They were beautiful, and we never did burn the house down with them, but Mr and Mrs Barlow’s tree with their modern electric lights caught fire on Christmas Eve and burnt up all the presents under the tree.’

‘Hmm,’ Illya said.

Napoleon tapped his fingers on Illya’s chest again, feeling the build-up of phlegm that was making his breath rasp.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘It was just as likely we would have burned the house down with our candles. But we never did. We blew them out every time we left the room, just like mom insisted. Then in the morning – I don’t know if that was the same year. You know how memories get mixed up? I remember waking up in the morning, finding my stocking full of – oh, candy, and a good apple, and a couple of bright new cents and nickels, and – oh, I think that was where I got Ted from. I had this little bear with moveable arms and legs. I loved that bear into shreds. I remember finding all of that when it was still dark out, squealing out with excitement, and dad coming into the room to tell me it was five in the morning, and I had to go back to sleep. Of course I didn’t. I crept downstairs with my bear and all that candy. There were presents under the tree, but I didn’t dare touch them. I just looked at some of the labels, and wondered what was in them. Then I got a chair and the matches and I lit all the candles on the tree that I could reach, and I sat there just hugging that bear and eating candy and watching the candles flicker on the tree. Then I fell asleep.’

‘And burnt the house down,’ Illya mumbled, his head lolling against Napoleon’s shoulder.

Napoleon put a hand on his forehead, feeling the heat there. Every time Illya breathed his chest rattled.

‘By some miracle, no. I woke up with mom standing over me, and the candles down to stubs. I’d fallen asleep in the armchair and my face was stuck to it with the sugar around my mouth. Mom was just carefully taking all the candles and replacing them with new ones. Dad talked to me sternly about lighting the candles, but he waited until after Christmas day. I don’t think I ever knew where they kept the matches after that, until I was about ten.’

‘What were the presents?’ Illya asked.

Napoleon shook his head. ‘Do you know, I’m not sure? It all blends together. I know I got a train set one Christmas, but I must have been too young for that that year. I don’t remember, Illya. Toys, I guess.’

He felt a moment of wistfulness for that lost Christmas, and for those toys that he had loved so hard some of them had fallen apart. He wondered what had become of the others. Maybe they were in a box in mom’s attic. When he got out of here he would have to go home and ask her.

Illya coughed again, and Napoleon held him as the coughs racked through him. It struck him again that he would probably be going home without Illya. He couldn’t bear that thought. It would be so senseless for him to die here, from neglect and a virus that had turned into an infection deep in his lungs.

‘Hey,’ he said, rocking Illya a little against himself. ‘What about you? Do you remember your first Christmas? They must have amazing Christmases over there, I bet.’

Illya huffed.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Don’t. Not Christmas. New Year.’

‘New Year?’ Napoleon asked him.

Of course, that had been a stupid question. He knew that Illya had grown up in the Soviet Ukraine, where God had been pushed aside in the face of science and hard reality. _There is no god._ That was the Soviet mantra. Still, it was hard to imagine. He had grown up sheltered and surrounded by the presence of Christianity, and when he visualised Russia he saw the onion domes of churches, the bearded gravity of Orthodox priests. Illya was the most rational, practical person he knew, but it was hard to imagine growing up without God.

 _God, if you’re here now, don’t forget Illya just because he’s an atheist,_ he prayed silently, his arms around his friend’s chest. _You wouldn’t let him die because he was brought up in an atheist state, would you?_

That was ridiculous, he knew. He wasn’t sure if he believed in God himself, but he did believe that if God were real, he wouldn’t let a jewel like Illya die because his society had eschewed religion.

‘Illya,’ he said. ‘What about New Year? Can you tell me about your Russian New Year?’

Illya moaned a little. His skin was burning hot against Napoleon’s chill. He could feel it, radiating through the thin cotton of his shirt, pulsing out of his body. He was burning himself up in an attempt to fight off the infection in his lungs.

‘Come on, buddy,’ he said gently. ‘Can you tell me about New Year?’

He desperately didn’t want Illya to go to sleep. He was afraid he would never wake up.

Illya just grunted. ‘Tired,’ he murmured. ‘Too hot. Hurts to talk, Napoleon.’

His head lolled sideways. Napoleon tightened his arms again.

‘Illya,’ he said. ‘Illya?’

‘It’s a goose,’ Illya murmured. ‘’Poleon, you should – ’

He sounded delirious.

‘Well, at least you’re dreaming of food,’ Napoleon said, but he felt deeply worried.

Illya didn’t reply. Napoleon wasn’t sure if he were asleep or unconscious. It too dark to see much of anything, much less to lift his eyelids and check his reactions.

He gently lowered Illya onto the floor and knelt by him, holding his wrist, checking his thready pulse. Every breath his friend took wheezed and rattled in and out of his lungs.

Napoleon lowered Illya’s wrist back to the floor, and stood up. He went over to the cell door and beat on it again with both his fists, yelling, ‘Hey! Hey! Anyone! We need help in here!’

He stood there, resting his head on the cold wood, listening. There was no sound at all. The place was quiet as death. It wasn’t that they were being ignored. They had simply been abandoned.

He thumped on the door again, even though he knew it was useless. His fists were starting to hurt. There was no sense in breaking his fingers trying to get the attention of people who weren’t there. He ran his fingers all over the wood instead, feeling for anything that would help him get the door open. He knew there was nothing. He’d already done this. The hinges were absolutely sound. The door had no latch on the inside. He could feel the keyhole but that didn’t help him at all. Besides, he thought he remembered them lowering a plank of wood into brackets across the door. He had seen it on the way in, and remembered hearing the sound of it dropping into place. Even if he could somehow force the lock, he wouldn’t be able to do anything about that wood.

He went back to Illya, feeling over him in the darkness, resting a hand over his heart, then on his forehead. How could he be so hot and still be alive? It was, he supposed, the contrast between Illya’s fever and his own chill. He was shivering while Illya was sweating. Perhaps he wasn’t quite as hot as he felt to Napoleon’s freezing fingers, but he was too hot. Far, far too hot.

He paced over to the window again, putting his hands on the bars, shaking at them uselessly. They were solid in the frame. They didn’t so much as tremble when he pushed on them. He couldn’t wrench one of them out, and besides, they were about fifty feet above the ground. What would he do if he did manage to make a gap big enough to climb through? He couldn’t climb down a sheer stone wall. Even Illya wouldn’t be able to manage that wall.

He stood there, staring out over the snow. The moon was pressing through the clouds, a misty glow that was sending enough diffused light out to show contours and contrast between light and dark on the ground. The blanket of snow was a pale, unfocussed thing, with the black arms of trees and lines of footprints showing up against it.

There. What was that? He stared at the treeline. The trees stopped some hundred yards before the fortress, and the space between was a mottle of snow and footprints. But he saw something move there, in the treeline.

Maybe it was a deer, or a wolf. It was big, anyway.

He kept watching. Something moving, something dark. Then he saw something else. Another shape, moving along by the edge of the trees. They were people, he was sure of it.

He couldn’t tell if they were enemies or just people. He didn’t care. He stuck his arm out of the window, trying to wave.

‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘Hi! Hi! Up here!’

The figures stopped moving. There were two of them, but when they stopped moving they became absolutely indistinct against the trees.

‘Hi!’ he shouted again. ‘We need help! We’re locked in here!’

There was a long silence. Then a voice called out, ‘Solo?’

The single word rang across the snow. It felt as if something had melted inside him, and let go. He felt a rush of breath coming into his lungs. He hadn’t realised he had been holding his breath.

 _God, God,_ he thought. These were his people.

‘We’re up here!’ he shouted again. ‘I think the place is empty. We’re locked in. Need medical help.’

He could understand the agents’ caution. The fortress could be full of Thrushies, as far as they knew. It wasn’t enough for Napoleon to tell them the place was empty. He couldn’t be sure himself.

There was silence then, and Napoleon knew better than to call out again. The men knew where they were, and they would do what they could. He went back to Illya and put a hand on his arm.

‘Hey,’ he said softly. ‘Hey, partner. The cavalry’s arrived. It’s time to wake up.’

Illya grunted a little, and that small noise reassured Napoleon immensely. Illya wasn’t unconscious, at least. He must just be sleeping.

‘Hey, Illya,’ he tried again, but his partner didn’t respond.

He tried to be patient. He sat down on the floor again and lifted Illya up so he was resting again against his chest. His partner lolled against him, burning hot, and Napoleon kept tapping his fingers against his ribcage, trying to dislodge the phlegm so Illya could breathe. Each breath was an awful rasp, and every now and then he would come to enough to cough helplessly.

‘Well, at least that will help them find us,’ he murmured.

He sat there, waiting. It seemed to be taking an interminable amount of time. Where were they? Surely they had come in by now? Surely they were searching the place? He strained to hear anything, but there was nothing.

He had almost given up again when he finally heard footsteps outside. They were very soft, almost beyond his hearing, but they were there. The staircase was wood, and every tread echoed and creaked a little. Then there was a fumbling at the door. Napoleon didn’t dare speak, in case it were an enemy. Then there was a knock, and someone called, ‘Hey, Solo. You in there?’

‘Yes!’ he called out. The relief was like a sunrise. ‘In here! Thank God…’

He saw the flare through the keyhole, for a moment illuminating the whole room in white light. He saw Illya lolled against himself, worse even than he had imagined him looking, his face grey, with pink points at his cheeks where the fever was making itself shown. He looked cadaverous.

Then the door was opening, and two figures were moving in, flashlights in their hands. The light cut across the room, and Napoleon tried to see the people behind them.

‘Illya’s almost unconscious,’ he said urgently. ‘Probably pneumonia. We need to get him to medical aid.’

‘All right,’ one of them said, and Napoleon started at the woman’s voice. It was rare to have a female agent out in the field. ‘We’ll get you both out. You can walk?’

‘I can walk,’ Napoleon confirmed. ‘I can carry Illya, too.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said prosaically. ‘Linden and I can carry him.’

‘I can carry him,’ Linden put in, coming across the room and kneeling down by Illya’s side. ‘It’s not like he’s a six foot wrestler.’

Napoleon recognised them then. Linden and Khangura, one of U.N.C.L.E.’s newer teams. They must have been dispatched when he and Illya fell out of contact.

‘Okay,’ Napoleon said. ‘Much as it will flatter Illya to hear we’ve all been fighting over who gets to carry him, we need to get him out of here. Have you got transport?’

‘Car’s on the road, about a mile away,’ Khangura said. ‘Rough walking, through the woods in the snow.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Napoleon murmured. ‘Building’s empty?’

‘Not a sign of a soul,’ Linden confirmed.

‘Okay,’ Napoleon said again, and without further preamble he hoisted Illya up over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. ‘No, no arguing,’ he grunted as Linden started to speak. ‘You’ve both got warm clothes. I’ve got nothing but this Russian bonfire to keep me warm. I’ll carry him.’

He felt weak after three days of starving, in this freezing cell, but he still wanted to carry Illya, and not just for the warmth of his fevered body. It felt like a personal responsibility. Illya was his partner. It was his job to get him to safety.

  
  


((O))

  
  


Stumbling through the trees was hard. Khangura had been right about the rough ground. Napoleon wasn’t dressed for walking in the forest, much less through knee high snow, in his smart leather shoes and suit. After ten minutes of walking he stopped, leaning against the chilled bole of a tree, panting.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Just – let me get my breath.’

He pressed his hand against Illya’s hot back, glad of the warmth, but his weight felt twice what it ought to be. There was an odd dizziness in the back of his head, and it was harder to get his breath than it should be.

‘Okay,’ Linden said firmly, coming over to him. He pushed his flashlight into his pocket, and lifted Illya from Napoleon’s shoulder without preamble. ‘I’m carrying him now, Napoleon,’ he said in a softer voice. ‘You’ve done your duty by him. Now let us do some of the work.’

‘Yeah,’ Napoleon said, breathing hard. ‘Yeah, okay, Paul. Thanks.’

He hung his head, trying to get the dizziness to clear. Then he reached to take the flashlight from Linden’s pocket, and shone it through the trees. There was a mess of footprints there from Khangura and Linden’s approach, and it was easy enough to follow as long as there was light.

‘Much further?’ he asked.

‘Not too much further now,’ Khangura told him, putting a hand on his arm. ‘Come on. I don’t want to have to carry you, you know. You can make it?’

Napoleon gritted his teeth. ‘I can make it,’ he promised.

It was already easier, without the weight of Illya’s body making him stagger, but Khangura kept a hand on his arm at first. He carried on wading through the snow, trying to step in the footprints, until finally the trees started to clear.

‘Road’s just up there,’ Khangura said. ‘And the car’s right there.’

‘Ah,’ Napoleon said.

He didn’t have the air to say much more. He felt so tired, and that dizziness was spreading again. Knowing the car was close had done something to him, made his knees into jelly and his legs into lead. It was so close, but –

He sank down into the snow, letting the darkness claim him.

  
  


((O))

  
  


Illya woke blearily. He felt as though a herd of elephants had been trampling over his chest, and his breath still wheezed in and out from his lungs. But there was warmth around him, and softness. His last memory had been of lying in a freezing room, on a hard floor, burning up nevertheless, feeling so awful that he almost would have chosen death if he had been given the option. Or – was his last memory of the sound of voices, agents he recognised, and – being carried somewhere? Or was it of bright lights and the voices of strident people all clustering around him? Had that been a dream? Some of it, or all of it? It all felt so confused. His head ached powerfully, and his mouth tasted foul. Despite the soft bedding, every limb ached, and he gave a soft moan.

‘Oh – ’

Someone jumped and moved in a creaking chair. Illya blinked, raising a hand to rub crusted eyes, as the person said, ‘Oh, God, I – Did I fall asleep?’

Napoleon was there in a chair by the bed, rubbing his own eyes, looking exhausted and dishevelled.

‘Illya, hi,’ Napoleon said then, blinking. ‘You’re awake?’

‘I – ’ His throat was sore, and he coughed a little, but that made a sharp pain in his already aching lungs. ‘I think so,’ he said raspily. ‘Where am I?’

‘Hospital,’ Napoleon said succinctly. ‘And not any too soon, either.’

‘You got me – ’

‘Here,’ Napoleon said, handing him a glass of water.

Illya drank, and the water felt wonderfully cool. He had been fevered, he remembered. Perhaps he was still a little fevered.

‘Thanks,’ he said. His voice felt a little stronger now. ‘You got me out?’

Napoleon laughed shortly. ‘Not exactly me, no. Two knights in shining armour rescued us from the tower. Or should I say a knight and a princess?’

Illya frowned.

‘Ah – Linden and Khangura,’ Napoleon explained. ‘It seems that when we hadn’t checked in for a while, Waverly sent someone out to look for us. And it’s a good thing. You might not have lasted the night.’

Illya cogitated that. Had he really been so close to death? He had just been ill, he thought. He had been ill before. But perhaps not so ill. Perhaps not so ill in such terrible conditions, with no food or sanitation. He felt ill enough right now to believe that his situation had been desperate in that freezing cell.

‘You melted me snow to drink,’ he remembered.

‘Yes, I did,’ Napoleon nodded. ‘I would have worried about making you too cold, but you were a Kuryakin bonfire at that point, so I don’t think it did any harm.’

‘You were – talking about Christmas,’ Illya said, closing his eyes for a moment. ‘The tree your father brought back. Decorating the tree…’

He thought he saw wistfulness in Napoleon’s eyes. He deliberately looked away, leaving Napoleon in his own thoughts, looking instead at the length of his own body draped with white covers. There was a drip in his arm. He supposed they were giving him antibiotics, perhaps painkillers, perhaps intravenous nourishment. He thought he should feel hungry, but he didn’t at all. He still felt too ill for hunger.

‘You were going to tell me about your first Christmas,’ Napoleon said, nudging his arm gently.

‘Oh,’ Illya said, looking back to his partner. There was no sign, now, that he had been lost in wistful thought. ‘Well, I didn’t have Christmas, Napoleon. I lived in a secular state. We had New Year. I suppose my memories are like yours, though. We had a tree, and presents. Our own kind of Santa Claus.’

He recalled those early New Years as a kind of vivid amalgam, without any age attached. It was a time out of time, and he couldn’t separate year from year. It felt so precious he wasn’t sure how to speak about it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. Napoleon often nagged at him to talk more about his childhood, but he didn’t want to. His childhood was his own, past and gone. It was his own chest of precious memories.

‘My first real Christmas,’ he said, musingly. If he was good at anything, it was obfuscation. It was useful in his job. ‘I suppose that would be when I was in Paris, at the Sorbonne, but I didn’t really take part. I felt – rather outside it all, I suppose, coming from the Soviet Union. I had been taught to distrust religion.’ He closed his eyes, because his head ached. The dimming of the light helped. ‘By the time I was in Cambridge I was ready to embrace it. I did embrace it – the good food, the singing in the churches, the camaraderie and fun. I spent some good Christmases with friends. I had a Christmas in Berlin, my brief time at U.N.C.L.E. there.’ He opened his eyes again. ‘Then there was my first Christmas in New York – ’

Napoleon’s eyes sparkled at that. ‘Ah, your first proper Christmas.’

Illya huffed. ‘My first exposure to the terrifying spectacle of capitalism utterly out of control,’ he said. Then he smiled. ‘It was a good Christmas. There was snow – do you remember? There was a party at headquarters. I wasn’t going to come. We hadn’t been partners for long, but you persuaded me I had to attend. I think you told me it was mandatory, didn’t you?’ he said, looking sideways at Napoleon.

Napoleon laughed. ‘I may have implied something like that, but I knew it was the only way I’d get you to come.’

‘Well, I came, anyway,’ Illya said. ‘There was too much loud music and everyone seemed to think the occasion was an excuse to kiss anyone they wanted to. I think we both drank a little too much eggnog, didn’t we? Then we walked home along the streets, and there was snow falling. You persuaded me to come back to your place, because it was closer.’

‘There was carol singing in the church,’ Napoleon said. ‘Remember we walked past a church, and we could hear the singing from inside?’

‘Ah, yes,’ Illya said dreamily, remembering walking along the snowy street, snowflakes falling from the sky, and the singing rising to the clouds. ‘Yes. We couldn’t stop because it was too cold. We got back to your apartment, and you had a tree there, in the corner. It reminded me of our New Year trees. You – put a record on the player, I think, and we sat on your sofa drinking brandy and – I think you had an endless supply of snacks for some reason. Then at some point I passed out on the sofa, and then it was morning.’

‘And by some miracle we didn’t even have hangovers,’ Napoleon reminded him.

‘By some miracle we didn’t have hangovers, and somehow the present I’d bought for you ended up under your tree.’

‘You had it in your jacket. You insisted I put it under there. When you woke in the morning you didn’t remember, and thought some kind of magic had happened. You thought you’d left it in your apartment.’

‘Oh,’ Illya said. ‘Oh, is that what happened?’

Napoleon smiled. ‘It is what happened, yes. We had a wonderful day, as I recall. No work, no interruptions, no Thrushies coming to spoil our fun. It really was a miracle.’

‘Ah,’ Illya said.

He suddenly felt very tired and ill again, the pneumonia catching up with him.

‘Yes,’ he said a little incoherently. ‘Yes. First American Christmas…’

‘Hey,’ Napoleon said, putting a hand on his arm. ‘Are you okay? Tired?’

‘Tired,’ he echoed. ‘Yes. Tired. Ill.’ He cleared his throat and tried to pull himself together. ‘I really feel very ill.’

Napoleon smiled. ‘Why don’t you sleep a little again? I’ll go grab a bite to eat while you sleep. There are some very pretty nurses in this hospital, you know.’

Illya frowned. ‘Of course there are,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I think you only visit me to see the nurses.’

Napoleon smiled again, an enigmatic smile. Then he pressed his hand on Illya's arm, and stood.

‘Sleep,’ he said. ‘Get strong. Maybe we’ll be back home in time for your New Year.’

‘Yes, maybe,’ Illya murmured.

He closed his eyes, letting himself sink back into the pillow and mattress. Did he feel Napoleon kissing the top of his head? He didn’t open his eyes again. He just lay there and listened to Napoleon walking out of the room, and the door closing. He was remembering lying in his little bed in his apartment on New Year’s Eve, filled with excitement about Grandfather Frost visiting overnight, filled with the glitter and beauty of the tree in the other room that was hung with gold and silver spiderwebs and topped with a shining star. There was no way to recreate that feeling, no way to recover it. All he could do was remember.

  
  



End file.
